Fargo’s new mayor, Josh Boschee, was sworn into office, along with the two new city commissioners on July 6. He won the five-way mayoral race on June 9 with about 47 percent of the vote.
Originally from Minot, Boschee spent a decade working in student affairs at Minnesota State University Moorhead and North Dakota State University before entering politics. He later became a real estate broker. By the time he became mayor, he was working for Real Broker, LLC. and leading a team of more than 120 agents and support staff across North Dakota and northwest Minnesota.
Boschee entered politics in 2012, when he won a ND State House seat in District 44, which includes downtown and parts of northeast Fargo. He served three sessions as House Minority Leader and sat on the Industry, Business and Labor Committee along with the Agriculture Committee. In 2024, Boschee became a state senator, where he served on the Education, Workforce Development, Employee Benefits and Budget Section committees.
Boschee launched his campaign for Fargo mayor in January, running to replace term-limited outgoing mayor Dr. Tim Mahoney. He won in a crowded five-way field, finishing with roughly 20 percentage points more than the second place finisher, commissioner Michelle Turnberg. Upon election, he resigned his senate seat. He has said he will phase out of his broker role by the end of July, while keeping an active realtor’s license.
His victory is historic in a way that rarely came up during the campaign. Fourteen years after becoming the first openly gay member of the state legislature, Boschee became Fargo’s first openly gay mayor. He’s also Fargo’s first ever full time mayor, earning a salary of $100,000 per year.
Boschee sat down with the High Plains Reader at Atomic Coffee in downtown Fargo on June 30, one day before he signed his oath of office. He discussed his victory and his priorities for the city he now leads.
High Plains Reader: In a five-way race, you almost received 50 percent of the vote. Do you consider that a mandate? And what was the key to such widespread support?
Josh Boschee: Well, certainly it was impressive. Not only the win margin, but also we had 7,000 more voters than we did four years before so, larger turnout — even though it’s not as much turnout as we’d like to see. We always want to see more people voting.
Seeing such strong support, whether people use the word “mandate” or not, it’s a strong commitment that people in Fargo wanted to see some change in the city commission. And I’m taking that as an opportunity to be kind of bold on some things and being able to advance things — housing affordability, public safety, some of the things on the budget — really a lot of those key things that we were talking about in the campaign.
HPR: How do you be a mayor for not just those 47 percent (who voted for you) but also the 53 percent who voted for somebody else?
JB: Good question. And it’s the same way I served as a legislator. At the end of the day, you know, regardless if someone voted for me or not — or didn’t vote at all — I represent that entire district. So that’s staying with me at the city (level). Even though folks may have voted for someone else, didn’t support me or didn’t ever want to see me as mayor, their concerns are valid and I think it’s just a matter of us finding a path forward to address their concerns.
There’s a lot of great things happening in Fargo. That’s one thing I took away from the campaign. But there are real challenges facing our community, too. I’m interested in tackling those challenges as best we can.
HPR: You campaigned on taking Fargo into a new direction. In what ways will a Boschee administration be different from a (most recent Fargo Mayor Tim) Mahoney administration?
JB: I think one of the key differences would be just how we engage with the community. So, first and foremost, I’m doing as much as I can to get city hall out in the community. Whether that’s neighborhood meetings, quarterly, or bringing the discussions to different quadrants of the city. You know, how can we better engage with people where they’re at?
I’ve seen in my time in Bismarck — and I’ve certainly seen it at the city commission — this expectation that people have access to their elected leaders if they come to them at 5 o’clock on a Monday. But how do we break down some of those challenges and those barriers and get out and talk to folks about what’s happening in their neighborhoods, what’s happening in their community? That will be one of the key differences.
HPR: What kind of a learning curve are you going to have since, although you have a lot of political experience, you don’t have any experience at City Hall, at least in an official capacity? Also, how does your experiences in the North Dakota State House and Senate prepare you for this job?
JB: Well, you know, there were three of us elected on election night — myself, commissioner-elect Gullickson and commissioner-elect Peterson. My analogy is that all three of us get to start on second base. We all have some level of government experience: Chad Peterson at the county; Nikkie Gullickson at the city (school board); and me at the state. So I think that just helps us better understand the issues and the paths forward. Some of the resources we can tap into, partnerships that can be made as we try to implement different things throughout the city.
But I certainly will have to do a lot of listening, just like I did on the campaign trail. What are the concerns of voters? But also listening to city staff: What’s already being implemented? What’s working well? What’s not? How do we see this as an opportunity to maybe change some things from the way they used to be done — right, wrong or indifferent? Just spending a lot of time listening.
HPR: So you’ll be the first full time mayor. That position hasn’t ever existed before. So how are you going to define the role? And what will the difference be between a full time mayor and a part time mayor?
First and foremost, the three mayors before me — Mahoney, (Denny) Walaker and (Bruce) Furness — all, I believe, worked full time. They just weren’t compensated full time. Two of those being retired and then Mayor Mahoney still working as a surgeon. By the city commission making the decision to actually fund the position at the workload it requires, provided someone like me — someone in their forties — provided me the opportunity to stop doing one job and really focus full time on the mayor’s position.
That’s what I’m excited for, to really dig in. Because the mayor’s and city commissioners’ time was limited, there was only limited conversations they were able to have with certain parts of the community. So as I talk about stronger engagement, one of the things I’m going to be working with staff on day one is making sure that my calendar has times that are blocked off to be out in the community to be engaging with community groups.
The Chambers of Commerce and the realtors and the homebuilders are great organizations, but they get a lot of attention from elected leaders. But then I think of the Immigrant Development Center or the Madison neighborhood, some of those groups that might not get priority time from elected leaders. I want to make sure that I set up my schedule so we’re doing more of that, too.
HPR: You ran as a Democrat for the state legislature. I don’t know if you see your role as mayor as a Democrat in a city that’s in a very Republican state. Where do you think there will be friction and where do you think there will be common ground?
JB: So I don’t see governing as a Democrat. Certainly people know I’m a Democrat; I’m proud of being a Democrat and I appreciate many of the values of the Democratic Party. That’s why I ran as one in the past. But to do local work, it really should be as non-partisan as possible and that’s what I’m committed to.
In terms of specifically working with the legislature that’s primarily Republican, that’s all I’ve known for the past 14 years (in state office). I was able to deliver through that and make partnerships.
I know there will be a honeymoon period, especially the first year. A lot of my Republican colleagues from this area supported my race. They said they were supporting me and they encouraged people to vote for me, because they saw me as someone who could partner with the legislature to make sure Fargo gets what it needs. Because, again, regardless of political party, Republicans and Democrats from Cass County want to make sure Cass County has the resources it needs to be successful, especially based on some of the challenges we face that are sometimes unique to us, but also shared with other communities across the state. During that honeymoon period, I certainly think there will be a lot of good will as long as I maintain those relationships. I want to make sure city commissioners also have experience working with the legislature because they all bring relationships and skill sets themselves.
HPR: What do we do to help with the housing problem and the problem of the unhoused and associated issues of mental health and addiction that are often present?
JB: I am actually a part of the Cass Clay Interagency Council on Homelessness, which was created last year by various governing bodies of the region and the United Way. United Way and the F-M Coalition to End Homelessness are spearheading that.
This isn’t just a Fargo problem. This isn’t just a Cass County problem. This isn’t just a North Dakota problem. How do we, as these different jurisdictions, work together to make sure we’re having a plan to get people the services that they need, to get people housing as quickly as possible and then (provide) supports around that housing?
Some of that comes down to affordability with housing. And so I’m interested in helping people that might be living in what’s called low-income housing that can maybe afford something more. Transitioning them upward to existing housing stock, because we’re never going to be able to build affordable housing at that rate. So how do we create this pipeline to help support people? It might be a new voucher program to help people get into better housing so that opens up some of that low-income housing. Really, it’s looking at it systemically and with the end goal of getting more people housed than people who are losing their housing. That’s also looking at our eviction policies, having conversations with landlords and property managers about how we can support them earlier in order to prevent evictions.
HPR: What campaign promises will you prioritize and what would a successful Boschee term look like?
JB: There are three internal things I’m looking at, starting with day one. Looking at what we are doing to bring all the agencies that impact housing and housing affordability, all the plans that we have, putting them all on the table and us working together to prioritize that, so that in 30 days we can start implementing a plan, bringing in stakeholders around those conversations.
Also, we will have a conversation about public safety. We know that that looks different for different parts of town. Downtown there’s a lot of concerns about weekend nightlife, burglary and theft, but we know in other parts of town it’s about traffic safety and speeding and drag racing and things like that. So it’s looking at what things can we do to move the needle to reduce those impacts and make sure people feel more safe in their neighborhoods and in their community.
Then the third piece is making sure that we have a sustainable budget going forward. Growth is happening in our city, so that helps us make sure we can address some of the needs we have, because we have increased revenue, but we need to prioritize things like public safety and housing priorities and things like that that folks have talked about.
What does a successful first term look like? Really, for me, it’s being measured on do people feel safer in their community? Have we reduced the number of evictions? Have we increased the number of people who are housed? Are we more reliable as a partner (with developers)? Some of those things are what I want to be held accountable to four years from now.
